JJ's at The Marina — Restaurant in Batemans Bay

I don't usually give 1-star reviews, but here we go.

Just to make it clear, the food here is, at best, average, and it is definitely overpriced. However, this is not the focus of this review, as I understand that the view here is amazing, and that is where this one star came from (as opposed to zero stars). After all, modern-day restaurant customers also value the whole experience very much.

Our journey began at the door of the restaurant, of course. We have booked a spot in advance, so I was expecting somewhat of a speedy process to get us seated. When we perambulated to the little reception area just outside the door, we signed in for COVIDsafe, and stood there where it says we should wait to be seated. We stood there for close to 10 minutes. During this time, we were bumped into by waiters twice who were going in and out of the door serving customers, but we were never asked if we want to go sit somewhere. 10 minutes later, a waiter came out and brought us in.

Fast forward to after we've ordered things online (which has probably alleviated the staff shortage, but not enough, it seemed). We ordered three things: a prawn salad of some sort, two pieces of fried prawn on a big plate, and a chowder. To our excitement, the first two dishes came to us within a very reasonable time frame, which helped to solve our hunger issue to some extent. So we nibbled the food at a very slow rate, hoping that the chowder could come before these two dishes were half-finished and we could enjoy all three food together. My goodness, I thought I was a cynical person, but I still underestimated the speed of the restaurant.

30 minutes later, I raised my hand like a student to enquire how far along they are along at feeding the mussels and fish that goes into our chowder. Then I was ignored for like 7 times before someone finally came to me. I expressed my concern to the waitress that we are still waiting for our hot, fresh chowder that I craved so much. The waitress nodded, went to the kitchen, and within a minute, voila, a big bowel of chowder magically appeared on my table.

After apologizing at a nearly inaudible volume without looking me in the eyes, the waitress left without wind. After snacking for 10 minutes and waited for another 30, now I can finally dive in! Life is good again! Oh no, the chowder ain't what I thought it was. It appears that while we were eating the prawns timidly, the chowder has been aging at the back like quality wine. When I put my spoon into the bowel and mixed the soup, the surface looked like my great grandmother's face (see picture attached).

Prior to coming to Australia, I spent more than 4 years in Boston, where I loved the New England fish/clam chowder with passion, and that was why I ordered it again here, hoping that this could bring me some nostalgia. I have to say, after fervently loving chowder for so many years, I was beyond a bit disappointed this time. I'm pretty sure a restaurant owner somewhere in Boston can make the chowder, eat it, and vomit it back up and it will look (maybe taste too, but I've never tasted vomit so I wouldn't know) better than this.

In any event, I finished the chowder at light speed because I was hypoglycemic, and we left quickly. I wish I could indicate my dissatisfaction by not leaving a tip behind, like the Americans do, but alas, this is Australia.

I went there yesterday for lunch.

TL;DR: great view, average food, high price, and...

Went to JJs on a Tuesday arvo, the music was OK, wasn't very busy, but it picked up a bit around 7pm. A nice view and a fair sized menu.

For how quiet It was, staff were not super attentive. We ordered oysters to start, they were tasty and fresh, then we ordered the chowder.

Chowder was huge but only had the smallest pieces of sourdough, which didn't go far amongst the giant bowl. We needed to add quite a bit of salt to it to make it more tasty. But I understand that salt is definitely something that can be added and not taken away! We only reached 1/3 of the way through when we ran out of toast, so we ordered some of the (turkish style) garlic bread with cheese. Then we waited a long time for it to never appear. We called attention after 20 minutes of waiting, our chowder by now was cold and we wanted the garlic bread to dip in. The waitress went to check. Did not return. A 2nd waitress came to repeat our order and we told her that we didn't receive the garlic bread with cheese yet. She looked perplexed and walked away. Later, I can assume, JJ himself? Came to see if we got it, told us that it was delivered to the wrong table and not to worry, he would sort us out.

All up we waited over 30 mins for garlic bread. There were maybe 4 other tables in the entire place.

So when we left we were expecting the manager to assist us at the counter and sort it out as implied, but we got the waitress and they charged the whole bill.

As a restaurant manager in a huge Sydney venue, I feel this is poor form, no one wants to own their mistakes. And as we were just staying around the corner, that would have been a good opportunity for them to encourage us to give them another chance at dinner tonight.

Unfortunately we're giving a 3* for the experience which I feel could have easily been bumped up to 4* had the situation been handled...

I would give 0 star if I could. I just left the restaurant around 30mins ago. I was there with 2 other people (all of us with Asian background). The restaurant wasn’t that busy, around half capacity, all of the patrons were white (it’s fine, I don’t hold this against them). There were about 6 staff working (2 behind the bar, 3 on the floor, and 1 older guy going up and down the cashier). We waited for about 15 mins for a table, all of them saw us at some point, we were standing inside the restaurant near the entrance but NOT ONE PERSON greeted us (a simple “hi, please give me 5 mins” would suffice) or led us to a table. In the end, one person asked us to wait to be seated (which was exactly what we were doing). She left the cafe to tend to people who were sitting outside. She came back with 2 new customers (both of them caucasians) and she said “oh sorry, I’m just gonna seat them first, they kinda just walked up”. She could easily asked the 2 new people to wait for 2 mins and got us a table first, but no, she CHOSE not to. As someone with Asian descent, I rarely felt discriminated in Australia, but this time, it was pretty blatant. PS: The pricing is quite ridiculous for a restaurant at this level/class, $36 for fish and chips!

EDIT: it’s more of some points of clarification after the owner’s feedback. As I said, the restaurant was at half capacity, it wasn’t that busy. I would’ve appreciated it someone just said “hi, please give us a minute”, which only take literally 2 seconds. Those 2 new customers WALKED IN AFTER us, the waitress who brought them in said so! There wasn’t any mention about pre-booking. I only read the negative reviews after I left this restaurant, there are at least 4 other reviews that mentioned “racial”, different service because of race, etc. So it tells us...